While Population Suffers Impacts of Poor Infrastructure, Greater Rio de Janeiro’s Flood Containment Program Is Delayed and Over Budget

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This article is part of a series created in partnership with the Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies at San Diego State University, to produce articles for the Digital Brazil Project on environmental justice in the favelas for RioOnWatch. 

In December 2023, mechanical technician Sandro Luís Costa, a resident of Parque Amorim, a neighborhood in Belford Roxo, a municipality in Greater Rio de Janeiro’s Baixada Fluminense region, faced one of the most devastating storms in the area. Living in a two-story house, he watched as floodwaters surged into his backyard, leaving him and his family stranded for days. Unable to leave, Sandro missed over a week of work. With torrential rains falling between Christmas and New Year’s, it took over a week for waters to recede. While his family fortunately did not suffer material losses, the vast majority of his neighbors, living in more vulnerable homes, lost furniture and appliances.

“I had neighbors with 1.2 meters of water inside their homes. I measured it.” — Sandro Luís Costa

A similar situation happened to Jupira Brasilino, president of the Jardim Nova Era Residents’ Association in Nova Iguaçu, another municipality in the Baixada. After severe floods in February 2024, she was forced to relocate to a neighboring area known as Marco Dois, in Jardim Alvorada. One morning, she woke up to find murky water already reaching her ankles. Facing financial losses, she turned to the FGTS Disaster Fund, a federal benefit that, among other uses, allows workers affected by natural disasters to access part of their severance pay to replace lost furniture.

However, far from being a mere “natural disaster,” the floods that struck the Baixada in February 2024 were, according to residents, the direct result of State negligence, primarily due to the failure to keep up with the maintenance of flood control infrastructure.

“They installed a pump near the river to try to improve the situation during heavy rains, but it only worked for about six months. It broke down, and no one ever fixed it.” — Jupira Brasilino

In the current context, with the worsening effects of climate change and increasingly catastrophic impacts on the most economically vulnerable areas of the Baixada Fluminense, the situations faced by Brasilino and Costa could have been mitigated if not for the state government’s ongoing neglect of the region. Residents argue that the effects of heavy rainfall would be less severe if proper urban and environmental management were in place.

The Endless Misadventures of the Iguaçu Project

What could have been the solution to the longstanding environmental challenges of the Baixada Fluminense became known in the mid-1990s as the Iguaçu Project. If fully implemented, it would have been an ambitious public policy built around a series of infrastructure projects designed to eliminate the vulnerability of riverside communities in the region to flooding. The proposed strategies included drainage systems, dams, hillside reforestation, spring restoration, and an innovative approach to urbanization along the riverbanks—creating canal avenues and recreational areas to prevent encroachment on marginal strips. Additionally, in sections most prone to flooding, the Iguaçu Project planned for the construction of floodable parks—urban spaces designed to temporarily absorb excess rainwater, an effective model for mitigating flood impacts in cities.

However, some aspects remain unclear regarding the project’s origins, execution plan, how it was communicated to the riverside population, and, notably, the various budget allocations made to the Iguaçu Project over time. The first version of what would later become the Iguaçu Project was developed in 1996 by the predecessor of the Laboratory of Hydrology and Environmental Studies at COPPE, the Institute of Graduate Studies and Research in Engineering of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). It was carried out under a contract between the COPPETEC Foundation and the state government, with funding from the World Bank. This study outlined a series of necessary structural actions aimed at reducing the frequency of flooding in the region’s municipalities.

Eleven years later, in 2007, there was a second attempt to structure and plan the project, led by the State Secretariat for the Environment (SEA) in partnership with the State Superintendence of Rivers and Lagoons (SERLA). This effort resulted in the Master Plan for Water Resources, Flood Control, and Environmental Recovery of the Iguaçu/Sarapuí Basin, covering the municipalities of Nova Iguaçu, Belford Roxo, São João de Meriti, Nilópolis, Mesquita, and Duque de Caxias. The plan included drainage works for polders (artificial hydraulic structures for flood control), tributaries, canals, and drainage channels forming the Sarapuí River basin and the Iguaçu River and Botas River. A total of 25 interventions were planned across these six municipalities comprising the low-lying Baixada Fluminense. That same year, according to the document, technical reports were to be prepared for the “immediate bidding of drainage works and the resettlement of riverside and floodplain residents.” These short-term measures were estimated to cost R$270 million (~US$48 million), with R$75 million (~US$13.2 million) specifically allocated for family resettlement projects.

Starting in 2007, a series of stops and delays affected the construction projects funded by the federal government’s Growth Acceleration Program (PAC) in the Baixada Fluminense, and managed by the State Institute for the Environment (INEA). At the time, the agency announced that priority would be given to the tributaries of the Botas, Sarapuí, and Iguaçu rivers, which were considered the most vulnerable to flooding. Over the next seven years, the Iguaçu Project advanced and inaugurated some works. However, in 2014, when the first phase of the project was completed—having already consumed around R$450 million (~US$80 million)—all construction was halted. As a result, despite the partial completion of some interventions, flooding continues to devastate the Baixada Fluminense.

 

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On February 23, 2024, after a new flood caused the overflow of the Botas River, newspaper O Globo reported that the State Government’s Civil Office presented a project to the federal government to recover the Iguaçu-Botas and Sarapuí River Basin, amounting to R$733 million (~US$129 million). When added to everything already spent, this would push the total beyond the R$1 billion (~US$177 million) mark.

State Negligence Fuels Environmental Damage as Vigilante Militias Expand

Although well-intentioned and designed to make the Baixada Fluminense more climate resilient, the Iguaçu Project became known for a series of missteps and embarrassments. The relocation of thousands of families to other areas was part of the plan—which included the construction of 3,000 homes—but authorities failed to handle the implementation of these policies with the necessary sensitivity.

This is what Marlúcia Santos de Sousa, a historian specializing in public policy and a member of the board of the São Bento Living Museum, an eco-museum in Duque de Caxias, reports. She explains that the first phase of the Iguaçu Project, in 2007, began with tense meetings with riverside communities. According to the researcher, the State provided conflicting information, leading to significant unease among residents.

“Here in Duque de Caxias, we witnessed psychologists being brought in to help residents cope with the emotional impact, as many families living along the banks of the Sarapuí and Iguaçu rivers feared becoming homeless due to the construction work, which was supposed to take down homes that had existed in these areas for years. It was all very confusing and exhausting.” — Marlúcia Santos de Sousa

The historian explains that there was conflicting information, including about where the new buildings would be built, which were planned for a location far from the original homes, along the Rio-Petrópolis Highway. While relocations did take place, the lack of effective housing policies allowed the occupation of vulnerable areas—such as mangroves and the São Bento Environmental Protection Area—to continue.

“Today, there are still eleven occupied areas, including Vila Alzira, one of the favelas located within the São Bento Environmental Protection Area. Along with the Guedes favela, it was supposed to be taken down, and its residents relocated to the Volterra housing complex, which is part of the Minha Casa, Minha Vida federal housing program delivered during President Dilma Rousseff’s second term. However, some time later, the Duque de Caxias municipal government ended up assigning the apartments to residents of the Teixeira Mendes favela in Sarapuí, completely disregarding the registration process carried out by INEA with the São Bento communities. Not to mention that many of the newly built residential areas are under the control of [militia] criminal groups.” — Marlúcia Santos de Sousa

To make matters worse, since 2019, vigilante militias have been running a well-known land-grabbing scheme in Guedes, a favela also known as Novo São Bento. Surrounded by the Iguaçu and Sarapuí rivers, Guedes seems to emerge from a green oasis, growing amidst mangroves and taboal, a plant that thrives in swampy areas. Deprived of their right to housing, residents are left at the mercy of yet another profit-grabbing militia business—one that destroys the environment and further increases the region’s climate vulnerability.

Given the massive scale of the Iguaçu Project, one of its contractual requirements was the creation of a public mechanism for monitoring and overseeing the construction. Elections were supposed to be held in the neighborhoods of the affected municipalities to form local committees. The original idea was for residents to bring their perspectives and lived experiences into the project’s planning and execution, making it reflective of the territories’ needs.

Thus, residents interested in participating in the process could register, vote, and run for positions, forming these committees. Citizen participation through the committee was intended to play an essential role in advancing the works and consolidating the project’s impacts. However, contrary to the initial plan, the scope of this participation was highly limited, as were the committee’s actions. Rogério Gomes, a community communicator from Belford Roxo, who joined the Executive Commission for Social Control, Monitoring, and Oversight of the Iguaçu Project in 2007, pointed out this gap.

“According to information from INEA, around 70 representatives were elected across the seven municipalities, all with meeting minutes and attendance lists. Despite the election, this committee was never officially introduced or given any kind of identification or credentials, and was treated in a sort of unofficial manner.” — Rogério Gomes

Gomes also states that the committee made very few real interventions in overseeing the projects. Regarding the irregularities detected by the group, he highlights “a stark contrast in narratives” between what is recorded in official documents and what was actually witnessed by the committee members.

“There was a bit of everything: sidewalks sinking, bike lanes collapsing, and sports courts built with the wrong measurements. Construction stoppages included projects like the housing complexes of Cobrex in Nova Iguaçu and Barro Vermelho in Belford Roxo, the Sarapuí Dam, and the Pilar and São Bento Pumping Stations, which we have not moved forward to this day.” — Rogério Gomes

For this article we reached out to INEA, submitting questions that have gone unanswered for years, causing outrage among residents and contributing to their climate anxiety. However, by the time of publication, the state agency had still not responded.

At present, the proposal for the New PAC is under consideration, with the promise of a massive investment aimed at transforming the nation’s infrastructure: R$1.8 trillion (~US$318 billion) in planned investments by mid-2026. However, without adequate planning, effective oversight, and genuine community involvement, the residents of the Baixada Fluminense will remain vulnerable to extreme climate events—which have become increasingly frequent in Brazil’s favelas and peripheral areas—while at the mercy of unkept promises.

About the author: Fabio Leon is a journalist, human rights activist, and media advisor with Fórum Grita Baixada.

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